I bought one of these. First time ever. Why? Because of this:
Jody “Shnitzel” Willcock is a good friend I met way back in my BCIT days. I had to buy one.
Author: admin
Made my own Dimple Dies
These always make things look good.
The Final Word on The Frankenleaf Hardbody
- 2WD main leaf, de-arced 3″
- 4WD second leaf, de-arced to match
- 2WD second leaf, bobbed and de-arced to match
- 2WD main overload, flattened (Canadian trucks have two overloads)
- 4WD second overload, flipped
- 3″ blocks, machined to 2″ with 6° taper
- Relocated rear shackle mount
- Re-drilled front eye mount
- Nissan Quest shocks
That should be it. SO not worth it.
Lathe Post T-Nut
Fabricated for a friend’s lathe.
Lethal Locost Tuning
I figured I should add an update on the current tune. I have been running pure Alpha-N for a couple years now, and this is the current state of the tune.
There is still a wee bit of unhappiness light-throttle around 2000rpm, and cold start is still about 10% unhappy. But very driveable, and nary a problem.
I did have a strange quirk wherein the car would act like it just dropped two cylinders, usually only once in a while, and only within the first 20 minutes of operation. Only a full on/off/on would make it go away. Someone on www.locostusa.com found the fix: reset “next pulse tolerance” normal running up to 70%. Problem solved.
I:/ Drive Access Again
With yet another Technology upgrade at school, there is a new link to access the School Server from off-campus. Use your regular user name and password:
Megasquirt Manx
I got the (possibly real?) Manx dune buggy running today. We ordered a new computer – I still don’t have the old computer running yet.
Now that it runs, I can tune it! Or…. we don’t have any O2 happening – lo and behold, it’s not even connected to the computer! Interesting. It runs ~ok~, and can be driven ~gently~, but it cannot be tuned without a working O2 sensor. The connector is unplugged, and the computer end of the connector is missing. Weird.
Lots of really nice work done putting it together, and some other “interesting” touches as well.
MegaSquirt Troubleshooting
I got a call from a friend who runs a shop in town, to see if I can help him out with a customer’s MegaSquirted Myers Manx dune buggy. Really cool buggy – lots of attention to detail on it!
I took the ECU home and have run a bunch of tests and am now stumped. I’m fairly certain there is something wrong with the crank trigger circuitry or the chip itself. I have borrowed a MegaStim board to test the ECU (I have since ordered a JimStim for myself), and I can follow the rpm signal into the board, through the opto-isolator chip, and into the main chip of the ECU, but the ECU just isn’t seeing it. I can fake “trigger” the injectors, but the ECU isn’t recognizing a “running” engine.
I’m confident I can solve it, but I’ve been at it now for about 6 hours of research and testing. The customer is just better off ordering a new ECU. I, on the other hand, I am very stubborn.
I will not be dominated by an electronic circuit.
Quieter (aka: “I’m Old”)
The Flowmaster is gone. I think it would have worked great on a V8, but the exhaust pulses from a 4 just aren’t enough to cancel each other properly. So – axed.
The latest muffler is on now, and there’s no going back.
It’s a Walker QuietFlow3 for a 1990 Chevy C1500 350V8. 2-1/2″ in, dual 2″ out.
And by gum, it’s pretty quiet. I can ~just~ hear exhaust note on the highway. Any drone is virtually non-existent.
Am I really that old?
Breaking My Kid’s Heart, and Making Amends
For my eldest son’s birthday, I bought him a small tool kit. One of those snap-the-tool-into-the-plastic-case jobbies. I figured I would get him a basic kit as one of those “Let us see what Squirt does” kind of gifts.
He loved it! He would show it to everybody who came to visit, he would tell complete strangers that he got the kit for his birthday.
He also started taking toys apart with it. Which is fine, although risky. Today I gave him an old printer to take apart – learn how things are assembled, without any risk.
He would get me to help him when he got stuck, and I’d help him a bit and let him continue. At one point, the printer case just needed some bigger muscle to “unsnap” it. In doing so, I snapped one of the screwdrivers in half.
My son was devastated.
He wept and wept and wept, and I felt terrible. The screw driver is unique, and it fits the case specifically. I had no idea where I could find a replacement. As he calmed down a bit, I took him out to the garage, sat him on a stool, and started making a new handle.
And here it is. And it fits the case, too.
Not the way I wanted to spend my evening, but a good opportunity to show how to deal with adversity. Plus, my son hates mistakes and craves perfection (as I do; go figure), so he got to see how I dealt with mistakes (and there were a few in the reproduction of the screwdriver).